Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "Alien Resurrection" (1997) follows a clone of Ripley—designated Ripley 8—grown two centuries after "Alien 3" so military scientists can harvest the Queen embryo inside her. The clone retains Ripley's memories and has absorbed alien traits, and once the xenomorphs escape, the film becomes what Pete calls "a French creature film wearing an Alien costume." Written by Joss Whedon, shot by Darius Khondji, and starring Sigourney Weaver alongside Ron Perlman, Brad Dourif, Winona Ryder, Gary Dourdan, Dominique Pinon, Leland Orser, and Michael Wincott, it is the film that closes the original anthology—and that both Pete and Andy find more interesting to dissect than to watch.
Pete opens with Whedon's own 2005 verdict on what happened to his screenplay: they said the lines mostly, but said them wrong, cast it wrong, designed it wrong, scored it wrong. Andy agrees on nearly every count except the score—and then complicates the picture by noting that an early draft of Whedon's script wasn't substantially better either. They find real things to defend: the cloning concept, the scene where Ripley 8 discovers seven failed previous attempts at her own creation, and the underwater alien chase that does something genuinely new for the franchise. They find more things that don't work: the wrong tone established in the film's very first scene, the Newborn hybrid creature with its puppy-dog eyes, and a mercenary crew that Pete says feels like an early draft of "Serenity" dropped into the wrong movie.
The conversation wraps with a broader look at the four-film anthology as a completed set—the first three hold together in a way that makes the fourth feel, in Andy's phrase, like the bovine dingleberry dangling off a prized cow. Plus: the directors who turned the job down (Danny Boyle, Peter Jackson, Bryan Singer), a trivia run covering the "Aliens" ride at Fisherman's Wharf, a facehugger easter egg hidden in the "Aliens" end credits, and an appreciation for prop collector Bob Burns, who amassed the largest known archive of Alien franchise artifacts from studio auctions.
🔓 The movie ends. The conversation goes further. Become a member of The Next Reel family.
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• Cinema Scope: Bridging Genres, Subgenres, and Movements | The Film Board | Movies We Like | The Next Reel | Sitting in the Dark

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